WSUB encourages creativity with hands-on experience

Brigitte Carreiro

WSUB, Suffolk University’s production club, is reaching out to encourage more students to get involved.

WSUB consists of students working with media equipment to film and produce anything from documentaries and PSAs to short films and music videos. The group’s co-chair, junior Breyanna Vass, said, “The point of the club is for us to get together and do our own projects. We want more of the students to be more involved and learn to use the equipment.”

WSUB invites all kinds of creativity into its midst. Writers, musicians, and editors alike are all encouraged to be involved in the club to see their ideas come to life.

Senior Hannah Tavares, the club’s leader, said her main goal is to establish a cohesive group that creates amazing work.

“I just like to make sure everyone in the group can reinforce their strengths,” she said.

Tavares said that she hopes to work together with other student groups on campus to develop all different kinds of creative works.

“If people are looking for some form of visual translation, they can come straight to us and pitch us their ideas,” she said. “It should be a collaboration among people of all creative fields.”

Tavares said that one way to embody this collaboration would be to work with the theater and performing arts departments. WSUB is thinking about documenting the PAO’s spring production of the musical Spring Awakening, perhaps in a behind-the-scenes piece that could be shown to students as a way to promote the performance.

In addition to being a creative outlet, WSUB is also a way for students to get hands-on experience with media equipment and develop skills that can ultimately help in their fields. According to Tavares, the club has a “separate stock” of equipment that is readily available to students looking to create their own projects.

The experience that students get working with WSUB is truly invaluable. Tavares described how being a part of the group is helpful when it comes to production.

“A lot of it is experience,” she said. “You take the equipment and figure it out for yourselves.”

She also emphasized the help available from the aides in the media lab on campus. “These people have worked professionally,” she said. “Sometimes people don’t know that we have these people to ask editing questions.”

Tavares also mentioned that she is working to bring WSUB to Las Vegas for a conference called the NAB Show this spring.

“It’s a huge convention where people who work with the visual media field do these huge exhibitions,” she said.

She emphasized the many opportunities that are available to students at this event, as the film industry is what she called a “who-you-know” basis.

“It’s a great networking experience to be really close with professionals,” she said.

Vass said though they are off to a slow start this year, the members of WSUB have projects on the back burner ready to go, including a short film about hit men and documentaries on the homeless and bad drivers.

WSUB meets in room 416 of the Ridgeway building on Thursdays at 1 p.m., and is always looking for students interested in getting their work produced.

“We are open to scripts all the time,” Tavares said. “Come pitch ideas to the group and then we can pick it up and work on it.”